COVID-19

One of the most powerful pieces of literature illustrating the proper preparation for a financial crisis comes from antiquity. More precisely, from the Bible.

One of the reasons quoted most often by those who refuse to get vaccinated against COVID-19 is the hypothesis that vaccines cause infertility.

These days we all need to hear good news—that life will soon return to normal and that we will be able to return to the troubles of yesterday, which now seem small to us. In the meantime, our lifestyle has seen changes that we could not have imagined just a few weeks ago.

Courage is not the opposite of fear, nor of caution. True courage is what you do right in the midst of fear.

The epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch thinks that social distancing will have to continue, in one way or another, hopefully in milder forms and in correlation with other activities. Lipsitch is the author of a study suggesting that social distancing may be necessary, possibly intermittently, until 2022.

Who do we listen to? Who is right? Who is balanced? How should we react to the risk of the new coronavirus?

What are the most reliable sources of information on the coronavirus, and what are the arguments that advocate for their reliability?

The mortality rate of COVID-19 remains high, but not as high as its transmission rate, and this good news needs nuances and explanations.

As the crisis caused by the new coronavirus deepened and spread, it was to be expected that the phenomenon would be framed in apocalyptic terms. It is something that tends to occur in such contexts.

Fines, military ordinances, police and army patrolling the streets – this is the reality we have suddenly found ourselves living in. It is a tightening reality, a rigid corset-like structure of rules.

How was it possible to produce a vaccine against COVID-19 in less than a year, and what guarantees are there that there were no compromises in the process? What can we say about the COVID-19 vaccine's safety?

Our planet may be fittingly compared to the 1994 film, Speed: A bomb is planted on a bus and rigged to explode when the bus slows to less than 80 kilometres per hour. The bus barrels through Los Angeles, hitting obstacles and endangering the lives of passengers and pedestrians until a solution is found.

Let’s not go back to the abnormality of before! This is one of the messages which the French hung from their balconies on May 1, when the activities that would usually happen on this national public holiday could not take place. What can we change and what is worth changing after COVID-19?

Peering through the dust settling from the chaos of last year, we are trying to see into the unknown of the coming year, hoping for the best. Irrespective of what our hopes for 2020 were, our expectations for 2021 seem to centre on things going back to normal.

I thought to myself: Is there an alarm or is it an end of day signal?